Part II - The Cambodian calamity

It is of course extremely difficult to quantify (or remember) a whole year of cycling. For the most part it is a slush of thoughts that are terribly difficult to clarify. Yet at the most unexpected times a memory may blat into consciousness creating a kind of swirling, mental vertigo as images from a whole forgotten chapter of the same very long cycle ride rise to the surface, stirring the mind into a spin of befuddlement at all that has happened since leaving Shepherds Bush Green. And a lot had indeed happened since that eventful day, yet when asked questions such as,

"What has been the most challenging part of your trip so far?"

Or

"What was your favourite place ?"

There is an instant mental stumbling as one attempts to fit together an answer from a constantly saturated mind. There have only ever been a handful of recollections that (consistently) seem to float near enough to the surface to help answer these extremely spacious questions. Cambodia would shortly become one of those readily pluckable memories; a miniscule snippet of cycling that would truly expand my own understanding of me. The jungle of Northern Cambodia would rise to the top of those permanently buoyant memories bobbing next to 'reaching the top of a 16,000 foot pass on Christmas day' and 'stumbling into a tree lined oasis in the middle of a desert’

The aquas pleasantries of Laos were at an end, it was the beginning of a tearfully overwhelming 'Cambodian calamity'

The river and road into Cambodia

On the 29th of June 2007 Condor was lifted onto the gang plank resting between a long boat and the West bank of the great Mekong river. I stepped a shore as an intrepid explorer full of the conjured excitement of a new adventure. Amidst the many concerned gestures at taking the Northern route in the wet season I conferred with myself and my muddy mathematics and concluded that the shorter distance would amply make up for poorer road conditions. It is a constant challenge to interpret given suggestions as to the conditions of roads and routes to take. One mans smooth cruise is anothers rubbled nightmare. In one year of cycling I had surely juddered across what I could only assume to be some of the most unfriendly cycling roads in the world. So with a slightly optimistic perspective on such matters I usually chose to discover what lay ahead for my self. And this of courses is what I chose to do on the West bank of the Mekong river. The road ended, the electricity ended and the adventure began! With a prudently expanded supply of food and drinking water I happily trundled into the Jungle.

In an instant the shade of dense foliage settled upon the rapidly diminishing trail, providing a beautiful first glimpse at a world like none I had ever seen. Murky pools of water brimming with life leaked from the undergrowth. With small divinely placed ridges of sand transporting Condors wheels effortlessly through huge wallows of mud and the optimistic sightings of an occasional local cyclist I was joyously trail blazing deep into the Cambodian Jungle.

The unexpected appearances of deserted stilted bamboo platforms quenched initial angst for dry places to sleep and provided perfectly balconied dining for the cacophonic surround sound show of nocturnal jungle life. It was on such an evening early into my jungle adventure that the bright eyes of a family emerged from the raucous wilderness to say hello. By the light of a bright moon the father of 2 beautiful children instantly expressed his concern at my arms and legs. Cloaked in mud I had failed all day to find any clean water to wash, and it now showed in heavy globules of moonlit mud and thickly clotted flip flopped feet. There was a 30 geared bicycle and portable water filter in the middle of their jungle, the children (with supply of nuts and a sesame bars) were giddy with excitement as I was led by the frowning father to his secret washing pool (a 3 foot wide deep well) and to my great delight his supply of filterable fresh water. Aided by scoops wicker bucketed water I was cleansed under the bright moon of Cambodia and it felt marvelous! My appearance was now apparently quite acceptable and I was deemed fit to retire under my mosquito net and sleep.

At sunrise the following morning a young baby was presented to me with anguished pointings toward her chest. She was sick and her mother was worried. It was a terribly helpless time. Water was boiled and muesli simmered followed by a sincere rummage through my first aid bag in an attempt to show that I had nothing that could help and more importantly that there was nothing suitable a 6 month old baby. It was a hapless gesture that only added to the difficulties in communicating that I was not a doctor and had no idea how to make her child better. Toothpaste and nuts were the stock of offerings I could think to give. It was a direct collision with life in a progressively wet jungle. A place whose remoteness and wet seasoned isolation I later learnt allows for very few provisions to supply the swamped interior. I had been awoken that morning at 5:30 by a crying baby and shortly after awoken again from a terribly shallow and romantic perception of what it is actually like to live in a jungle. For the next week I also would be living in the (their) jungle. This pre-emptive optimism that had carried me into its dark jungled interior was beginning to wane. The divine provision of small ridges above the swampy gloop and clearly visible routes were fading as rapidly as my sure footed confidence that all would be well.

It was a growing sense submergence. The track now descended into dark tunnels of dense canopies ripping through curtains of hanging vines. Bright diffused sunlight was reduced to a blunt mist plied with mosquitos the size of small peas (with equally sized bite marks). The track, the main thorough fare through the jungle now resembled little more then a pulp of jungle mush. It was now the warn notches in roots spanning the track or recently flattened undergrowth provided clues as to which way one should choose to go.

It was essential jungle comedy as seemingly shallow pools now consumed Condors front wheels followed by the bags, me and a complete entrenching up to ones knees. It was now that any serious thought as to what I had cycled myself into was instantly vanquished for fear of a quite tragic loss of will to see it through. In any case the rain continued and there was little that could be done to appropriate a quick exit anyway.

Left or right ? Right or left! GGGrrrrrrrr!

Repeated failings at guessing which side of the gloop to steer would consistently end in slopping plunges as Condors sinking mass disturbed whole ecosystem of frogs, fish, snakes and (quite collidable) wild boar. Deep, bare handed dredging would begin for lost flip flops and on occasions lost bicycles.

With a strained resolve I would repeatedly drag the whole mass of clogged gears, bags and breaks to some island of dryness where I might then poke enough mud from Condors workings to continue (with the three gears that still worked) twenty more meters further down the track before the next plunging only to repeat the whole process hour after hour. It was on such a tiresomely soggy occasion (around the tenth of the morning) as I sloshed thigh deep in jungle frustrations (add another 2 or 3 insect bites and a few more thorny cuts) that a young boy on his bicycle biblically skimmed across said 'puddle' only 2 meters away. From my sunken perspective this young cycling saint had apparently and quite miraculously 'floated' across my swampy wallow. As my left foot un-sucked (and my right foot sunk deeper) the boys miracle became clear…………. Of course! ........ He knew the way! He knew which side of the puddle to cross, which track to take, when to stop and push ……….. he knew everything! He stopped and kindly helped in scooping Condor from the last sinking of the day!

Flip-flop breaks!

So began the first of the many saintly partnerships with the bubbling young lads of the Cambodian Jungle. In the wake of these faultless jungle cyclists I now skimmed effortlessly over submerged ridges bridging the huge vats of jungle gloop. I divinely swerved off the trail into deep jungle undergrowth only pausing to recover when a far less dainty Condor struggled for grip or for essential offerings of sweets and sesame bars. For them, it was a 'quick cycle down the road' to visit a friend or maybe an afternoon opportunity to chat with a friend on the nearest amateur radio. For me, it was a welcome return to much calmer days of cycling. These young peddling angels had pacified the rising tensions over whether this really was an appropriate place for a cyclist to be and more importantly whether it was actually possible to cycle all the way to the other side!

I now knew that villages would indeed appear if I continued a little further down the track and knew that when I got there I would be welcomed by the people and the abstract curiosities of village life. Cheeky tame monkeys would demand a snack of nuts from Condors bottle whilst next door a large crowd watched a generator powered TV spectacle of female kick boxing next to the bamboo hut housing a full karaoke system with 6 foot tall speakers (in the middle of a jungle!) opposite the cue of people waiting to use the village radio.

At times the oddities of the jungle could leave one metaphorically (and often quite literally!) grappling for some little piece of firm ground on which to rest ones exerted mind. A spot of familiarity as it were, where one may have a reasonable sense of what lay ahead or feel comfortable that nothing perilously difficult may lurk round the next corner.

One morning ……………….. A wild pig bristled past the wheels forcing an instant departure from my tentative cleft of firm ground into yet another thorny collision with the undergrowth. As thorns were plucked from sore legs two men miraculously appeared on a scooter half submerged in water each sporting a large Kalashnikov gun. They beamed a smile my way and were gone in a puff of cigar smoke and flooded engine steam. Shortly after a soggy bread sandwich lunch ................. the jungle scooter phenomena continued……….. Ploughing up a mud slide one foot wide were 6 chickens strapped to the front handle bars, an old lady on the back with an intravenous drip in one arm (and the other in a sling) and on the sagging rear end, strapped and impossibly housed in their bamboo cage were 2 squealing pigs. I was in the middle of the jungle! The old woman smiled casually just as I began to slip a little further off that patch of mind comforting dry land. Later that afternoon I disembarked from a 3 planked 'boat' (crossing a 100 meters of sunken jungle) to be greeted by a man with his home made crossbow in one hand and a bloody dead thing in the other, he offered it to me dinner. I slipped a little further from that little dry patch of lucidity. Condor precariously shimmied across the last logged swamp of what had been a very exposing day. The drop into rutted mud at the end of the ‘log run’ sucked both tyres to a stand still. With hands still probing the mud for a lost flip flop the comedy of another muddy sinking and the days collection of obscure events gave cause for a little pause, a daydream as it were, an impromptu muddy moment to ponder the day. I munched on a biscuit, chuckled some more then startled from my daydream I heard my chuckle echoed. An upward suck of bare feet allowed a glance at my chuckling neighbor. The old man was saddled on his one geared bicycle (and spotlessly clean of course) grinning at my state of melancholy immersion high upon his throned ridge (which of course I should have been on too!). As I casually gazed down to his feet I saw only one. I gazed slightly higher. He only had one leg! and he was offering to help me! I was humbled. Quite mind scorched and for a few moments completely speechless. He reached out with his hand. I shook it covering it in gloop and as the heavy scorching I had just received lightened we shared in the humour of his nobly cleaner position. His leg had disintegrated when he stepped on a land mine just "over there". A tear ran down my cheek. He wobbled a little on his seat. I held his shoulders (glooped him again!) and just ........ well........ smiled in amazement. Then he was gone. The rain fell, my tears diluted and I was left alone. Without a hope of clawing my way back up to that little island of familiarity the day concluded by peering through streams of water flowing from the thatched roof of a family home. They had kindly offered me a place under their stilted abode.

The strobes from an electric storm and warm flickering light of a fire radiated through bamboo rafters illuminating the excitedly viewed world map in the center of our circle. The long shadows emphasised all our names etched in the sand (I think that is what we were all drawing anyway!) The chicken which had been pecking around Condors wheels was now served with rice. I was exhausted, happy, warmed with kindness and filled to the brim with another extraordinary day in the Jungle of Cambodia.

The storm rumbled through the jungle as I blissfully collapsed onto my royally proportioned bedstead. An extended family of 2 (grunting) pigs, 6 (tweeting) chicks, 1 (clucking) cockerel, 2 (snoring) dogs and 2 very peaceful goats followed my lead, nestling under my bed for the night. They were a considerate lot, that is until 5:30 the following morning!

The soul stirring encounter with the incredible one legged cyclist had been a precious educator into my oblivious strolling "off piste" for toilet visits or the innocent swishings through long grass in search of a dry spot for lunch. Hand painted pictures began appearing (a little posthumously I thought) tacked to trees, next to water wells or in village clearings warning children of the gruesome danger in going to play beyond bamboo fences and ditches. Later these warnings refined into detailed colour coordinated maps displaying areas of safety and the large swathes of land yet to be cleared of mines.

My own soggy map that had guided me so well to the verge of this great tangle had proven painfully inadequate once I had been consumed within its confines. On the European impression of a Cambodian Jungle the village names were written using English characters. A 'road' on the map was now a lake and a minor trail, avoided for fear of excessive mud would actually be the main thourough fare for the next 100 miles. A strange overloaded European cyclist pointing at a very incongruous map was the cause of many pronounced fits of frustration and an eventual resignation that even an examination from a whole kind hearted village would do little for my labyrinthed state of being. Navigational hopes were for the most part pinned primarily on occasional flukes in pronunciation. It was terribly disheartening to plough through an uncertain 4 hours of mud with a compass frivolously prodding its needle in the wrong direction with only the slimmest clue as to arriving …….. well, arriving anywhere! One evening, officially lodged in the local police hut I was accompanied by 3 young men. One was a teacher with a fine command of English and the other two were veteran jungle scooter delivery men. With a little cyclists charm and an hour of mystic sketching there before me lay my very own treasure map (the treasure being a puddle-less track). It was indeed a masterpiece. Instantly understood by all and completed with phonetic translations for me to hollow out to people in the jungle or on the opposite sides of rivers. There were little symbols of bridges, rivers and streets ("street"…………a vital and well understood addition to my vocabulary, despite being in a thick jungle!) Most importantly of all was a cartographic ordering that represented how people actually viewed their land. It was a map that marked active river crossings (a place in the river where "Mr. Heang" could be found with a boat), tracks were studiously marked with plank symbols representing swamp by-basses). Map names referred to areas between dense knots of jungle or hooks in rivers, very different indeed to the dots and specific place names of my struggling European cartographic counterpart. With my new found phonetic prowess I could call out the name of a river or area of jungle and triumphantly receive a nod of approval or guiding point. The treasure was soggily marked in the in the top left corner…….X marks………a real road and a (presumed) parapet of prosperous cycling above the mush that would surely put an end to cycling on the 'streets' of Cambodia.

I knew exactly where I was and was sure to soon emerge into the airy planes of Western Cambodia. The unrelentingly sloppy 'streets' were coming to an end! With a flourishing optimism that I was quite on time for a rendezvous with friends on the shores of my paradise Island, my 2 wheeled steed bravely continued with its nimble swagger across catwalk swamp crossings until one last moment of obtuse jungle theatrics quite literally ripped through my pre-emptive arrival at ‘X’ and some smooth cycling.

A cloaked branch peeled some skin from my left arm then plunged through a waterproof rear mounted bag. Condor stopped. I carried on moving. It was a terribly inappropriate time to have ones momentum interrupted. As my thighs hit the handle bars the tyres slipped on the damp log…………………..

I awoke with my head resting on a log looking up at another log, the one I had just been cycling across! It had been a barbarous landing and it bloody hurt! Condor was underwater and my legs were under Condor. My arms were snarled in thorny vines and a log tugged at the hair of a very sore head. I had cycled a very long way to land in this spiky, sodden pit and knew very well the stirrings of emotions that begin to surface when in such pickles. As they surfaced these desperate emotional states would lead to laughter or quite the opposite a tearful cry onto the bar bag, wondering what or how it had all come about. I was now obviously in one of those absurd predicaments and began to laugh!, followed by a lot of bad language and then finally an attempt to move. A man magically appeared (as they often did in this part of the world) five feet above me, peering down from his firm grip on the log. He had caught my attention at the moment between verbal explosions and a kind of distorted laughing scream. He chuckeld to himself and continued his amble across the log.

“OY!” ……………”STOP!”

Five minutes later he had gripped Condors frame and pulled it off my legs onto dry land. He picked up his machete and innocently began to walk off again.

"OY!”…………. “Don't leave me, please!"

My sodden physical self had awoken with that second cry for help and lots and lots of bits of me began crying out for attention. Submerged vines had lacerated my legs. My left toes refused to move in the gloop and my awfully aciculated left arm was bleeding. My head was lumped and becoming a little overwhelmed. My left foot really hurt and continued with its submerged muffled screams for help. The painful foot was a marvelous distraction during the stripping away of vine clasped limbs and within minutes I was now free to extract myself from this malodorous mess. The machete mans friend appeared at the untimely moment of this first failed attempt to pull myself free. Now it really bloody hurt! (read the progressive decline in civil communication)

I pointed, gestured, clapped and slapped and then as I held my arms out to the men in the hope they would understand, down they plopped into the mud. I was so very happy, I was being helped. We clasped hands and they pulled…………………OUCH!

There was a toe pointing in a very peculiar direction and another looking extremely plump. I was on a small track in a jungle with a broken toe that hurt an awful lot, a deep cut in my arm, lacerated legs and a dizzy head with a lump on it. My initial good cheer was beginning to fade. I tried to lift Condor, painful toes sank into the mud bending them upwards…………Ouch! ……I fell. I was pulled to my feet again leaving a little more good cheer submerged in the mud. Condor was mobilised by the two men who had now taken thorough notice of my slightly helpless state. I tried so very hard to walk and support Condors weight and with desperate cries as toes bent in horrible ways the memory of the one legged cycling man and all the other limb lost people I had seen prodded my conscience quite severely. From a point of sinking self pity I was risen by such rousing thoughts to a gradual realization that there was nothing to do but go forwards …….. some how. And that is what I did. Only two hours down the road I was safe. The smooth track, the big ‘X” and the treasure on the map had been reached. I learned never to put my left foot down first when stopping the bicycle and with regularly prods of encouragement from the memory of the one legged cycling man I wobbled westward to the ancient 'lost' city of Angkor and onto the Border of Thailand.

Yellow flags flapped in celebration for the 60th anniversary of the Kings ascension to the throne of Thailand. Yellow was the kings colour and so, donned appropriately (if not a little inadvertently!) in a yellow T-shirt and with an impeccably yellow suited Condor I was warmly welcomed into Thailand. The satiated cycle through the jungles of Cambodia, and into the ancient ‘lost’ city of Angkor had left a huge imprint upon me that, for the most part misted the short cycle down coast of Thailand into a haze of impossibly smooth roads, electrified conveniences and the first sight of the south China Sea. It was unfathomably uncomplicated cycling. With a strange residual fear that something around the next corner would scupper this blissfully easy riding it was a pungent cycle through the waftings of shrimp farms, Shrimp genetic improvement centers, fish farms, salt farms, packing plants, dark burning diesel fumes and dark green/brown flood water.

Ten days earlier I had limped from the jungles of Cambodia and I was now triumphantly boarding the boat to my ‘paradise island’ and the shocking surprise of seeing three hundred people in bright clean cloths watching television in an air conditioned cabin. I sat on the deck as equally bewildered by this sudden immersion into European travel culture as I had been at the site of the intelligent waftings of plants in Laos or the one legged jungle cyclist in Cambodia.

I was four proud days early and in the shade of a palm tree rested Condor against my beach side hut. Condors trip computer read 5 digits…………I had huffed and puffed myself a whole 10,000 miles from Shepherds Bush!

Delicious banana milkshakes were glugged and palm fringed beaches combed in wait for my friends arrival. At last I had finally got to lie inside the pictures I had so vividly remembered from the Tibetan plateau.